Group Performance: Individual Assessment it Is Stated

¶ … Group Performance: Individual Assessment

It is stated in our team charter that "teams work better when members have a common understanding of the team's goals and the ground rules for team activities." I found this to be true in my experience working on this team. We did set some basic ground rules and we decided on our goals. Because we did this at the beginning, I feel we were able to avoid a lot of the misunderstandings that could have happened. Also, in writing down the things we agreed on, we made it official. This seemed more formal and business-like, but it turned out to be a good idea, although in some areas it would have been helpful to be more specific about what we meant.

My role in the group was to contribute to the group performance and do my part. I felt very committed about doing this, and I think the other team members felt the same way. I am not a take-charge person who is eager to be the leader, but there were other team members who had strong leadership qualities and who were eager to do this. Therefore, the role I adopted was to do my part to the best of my ability and to follow the instructions that the team leader gave out.

I think the most important skill that I improved during my team involvement was my communication ability. Communication was very important to the group, and it was necessary for each of us to clearly express our thoughts to all the other members. We also had to make sure we understood what the other members said. Miscommunications could lead to misunderstandings, and this would lead to our group failing to meet the goals that we had agreed upon. Also, if we had to spend time fixing misunderstandings, there would be less time we could spend working on our individual parts and on our discussions as a group. So I feel that I learned a lot in this area about learning how to work with other group members.

I do feel, however, that more group discussion would have been helpful. Sometimes instructions were sent by email and the instructions did not completely explain what I was expected to do and how my part would add to the project. This was a bit confusing. In future group efforts, I would try to be more proactive and ask more questions.

I think our group was able to develop into a good team with good team dynamics. We got off to a good start because we all had similar backgrounds. We were from the same culture, and we were all female, and this helped us communicate clearly with each other and avoid miscommunication. Even though we only had three actual meetings, we were all open to using different communication platforms to increase our ability to share messages and ideas. We used electronic media such as Facebook and MSM to do this, and it was very effective in making sure all members could be aware of what was going on.